Measuring spatial variability of land use associated with hydrological impact in urbanised quaternary catchments using entropy

Authors

  • M Ilunga Department of Civil Engineering, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Private Bag X6, Florida Campus, 1710, University of South Africa, South Africa
  • VP Singh Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering & Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A and M University Scoates Hall, 2117 TAMU College Station, Texas 77843-2117, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v41i1.7

Keywords:

decision-making, entropy, hydrological impact, quaternary catchments, urbanisation, risk

Abstract

Decision making for water resources is needed for land-use change due to urbanisation, which impacts hydrological variables such as mean annual runoff (MAR) of catchments. Urbanisation introduces some degree of uncertainty (expressed as entropy) to this specific variable. This study uses Shannon or theoretic entropy as a tool for measuring land use variability/diversity of urbanised areas in South Africa. Positive correlations between entropy and increase in mean annual runoff (MAR) due to urbanisation are derived. Also, relationships between return period/risk of failure (flooding or water supply) and entropy are established. A case of Pieter Wright Dam of the Vaal drainage region is used to demonstrate these relationships. Consequently, the reliability of this dam is shown to be positively correlated with entropy. Data on surface water resources of South Africa 1990 (WR90) compiled by the Water Resource Commission (WRC) were used in this study.

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Published

2015-01-28

Issue

Vol. 41 No. 1 January (2015): Water SA

Section

Research paper

License

Copyright (c) 2022 M Ilunga, VP Singh

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

The content of this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence.  Users are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal under the terms of this Licence, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, provided the source is attributed. Copyright is retained by the authors.

How to Cite

M Ilunga and VP Singh (2015) “Measuring spatial variability of land use associated with hydrological impact in urbanised quaternary catchments using entropy”, Water SA, 41(1 January). doi:10.4314/wsa.v41i1.7.